Speed-Reading Book Nerd Reviews

First Lady

By Susan Elizabeth Phillips.

This book is freaking awesome. I'll admit that the original situation is a wee bit contrived, but the story is really awesome, along with the characters.

Cornelia Litchfield Case was bred to politics. First she was a senator's daughter...then a vice president's daughter. She grew up in front of cameras and learned early never to screw up about anything. She got fixed up with another politician and ended up First Lady. But after 3 years her husband is assassinated...and Nealy thinks she can get out of the First Lady job. Not so fast there-- the VP is single and nobody else is around to take over the job... Nealy hits her freaking limit and engineers an escape plan out of the White House. She doesn't expect it to last very long, but what the hell, she'll have herself a fun vacation, in her very good disguise. (Which I found hilarious.)

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, Mat Jorik is a man destined to forever raise small hordes of females. He was the only boy in a family of seven girls and raised them all... and now he is BURNT OUT TO HELL of families. When he was 21, he married his pregnant girlfriend Sandy...who turned out to be lying about the baby being his, so they divorced. However, it turns out that Sandy always had fond feelings for Mat. Enough to give the kid his name and put his name down on the birth certificate. She even did this with her SECOND child, her new baby, even though Mat hadn't seen Sandy in 15 years and Sandy was still with the shitfless baby daddy. Except Sandy and her boyfriend just died, and Mat got the phone call to take care of his kids. Which aren't his. Mat goes down there to (a) get blood tests pointing he had nothing to do with their conception and (b) drive the kids to his ex-mother-in-law's house. However, 14-year-old Lucy isn't so down with this plan and is worried about what will happen to her and her baby sister in foster care enough to be thinking of other options.

These folks all meet at a roadside diner after Nealy's car is stolen, and Mat takes pity on her and takes her into their motorhome. And thus we begin an impromptu road trip where everyone starts to slowly like each other, even if they all start out cranky at first. Nealy's imaginary backstory is somewhat fishy-- and Mat's usual employment is in journalism, so he's suspicious-- but they all roll along anyway and start to have a great time in between arguing. But Nealy's clock is ticking and the Secret Service is coming...

I won't spoil the end, but it's awesome. Four stars.

Blood Drive

By Jeanne C. Stein.

Previous book here.

Anna's older brother died in an accident when he was 18 years old. Fourteen or so years later, his high school girlfriend Carolyn shows up at the Strong family's door saying that her 13-year-old daughter Trish is Steve's kid and she needs Anna's help to find her. Carolyn turns out to be ALL KINDS of a bad apple, and you rapidly figure out that Trish is involved in a crime due to her mother and is in dire need of finding and saving. Especially since Trish's friend Barbara has turned up dead. While the Strongs try to find out how to get a DNA test done and get the kid away from her mom's side relatives, Anna goes after Trish with the help of Daniel, a popular teacher at Trish's school that has dealt with this kind of crime before... and is another supernatural sort.

I definitely liked this book a lot better. The creep factor has gone way down from the previous book, and I really liked Trish, her friend Ryan, and Daniel as new characters to the world. The mystery is a good one and things tie together. The case feels very personal to Anna, for obvious reasons, and that personal stake works well.

I still don't know what to make of Williams, the police chief, who may or may not be evil or a good guy. I'm still not sure there. I guess he's supposed to be weird, though? Likewise, I continue to be kind of baffled at the romance-ing in this book-- it's all still clearly in fuckbuddy zone for me, so I don't really care. But whatever, she gets her rocks off and everyone's happy, okay, I guess.

Anyway, I'll give this one four stars because it's much more better done and lives up to its potential.

The Becoming

By Jeanne C. Stein.

Anna Strong is a 30-year-old bounty hunter who gets raped and turned into a vampire by one of the skips she's tracing. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the doctor on shift when she comes in is also a vampire, and recognizes the signs of what's happening. And Dr. Avery offers to mentor her... in alllll the ways, if you know what I mean, hubba hubba. Anna is warned that (a) she really should kill her maker, Donaldson, because he's a rogue killer and makes them all look bad, and (b) a group known as the Revengers are out to kill all vamps and will suspect her of being one specifically. Soon enough Anna's being chased, her house is burned down, and her business partner gets kidnapped-- but why? Anna is left to figure it out before her partner gets killed.

Overall, my thoughts:

Anna is a pretty good character. At least, she doesn't deserve the "cross between Queen Betsy and Anita Blake" reference on the back cover of this book, because she doesn't have anything in common with the former and isn't nearly hitting the levels of power-ups and whoriness of Anita-- yet, at least. She is tough and smart. And while the case itself is kind of a weak one-- let's just say there's not a whole lot of suspects here to choose from-- Anna is smart enough to figure it out and how to handle the situation.

The nature of vampirism: I dunno. Some of it is awfully convenient-- like San Diego vampires can wander about in the sun without any problem-- and other things seem like they'd be hard to cover up, like a lack of reflection. Oh yeah, and vamps only need to feed monthly (from a live person, but they'll get whopping orgasmic pleasure from it), so that's nice.

The menfolks: This series is trying to set up a Love Triangle, but frankly, neither side is very good. Dr. Avery pretty much gave me the heebie-jeebies from the getgo so I was never into him or rooting for him, and Anna's supposed boyfriend of two years, Max, is BARELY in the book because he's undercover DEA. Anna claims to love him and be faithful to him, but uh... well, there's a reason someone thought of Anita Blake when reading this book. And given how rarely the two see each other and for how long, it sounds like they are more fuckbuddies than anything else, so big whoop. I don't know enough of him to care about him. So as a romance, if it's supposed to be one, the book fizzles.

I'll give it three stars. I've read better, but it's not too bad.

More on ratings systems

On a related note to this:

Apparently some author blogged this weekend about the Amazon reviews system, basically saying that anything other than a 4 rating is a NOT RECOMMENDED review and that either you should post a 4-star or no review at all. This made me really glad that I stay the hell away from doing reviews on Amazon. Mostly because I get my review jones out over here under my own control and I can say a lot or a little as I feel like, but also because uh, some things need to be clarified. And I had no idea that giving someone a 3 there might as well be a one star, this is total crap review and I personally am totally sinking your book. Geez, really?

And again, three or 3.5 stars here does NOT mean "NOT RECOMMENDED." It is recommended, but with some reservations, or "this wasn't quite for me but it wasn't bad" qualifications. It's not a 100% yay, but it's usually about a 70-80% yay. "NOT RECOMMENDED" here is 2 or 1.

So there you go.

The Future We Wish We Had

By a bunch of people.

I usually like those books where there's a bunch of short stories on a theme, but not this one. Most of them are really weak and bad.

• "A Rose For Emily" by Esther M. Friesner. Unpleasant story about a scorned woman from a Southern family completely losing her shit because their automated French chef kitchen is a bit snobby. Frankly, the only one you like in there is the girl's dad. Everyone else is unbearable and the ending is even creepier. I usually like this author, but ugh.
• "Waiting for Juliette" by Sarah A. Hoyt: Irritating story about Romeo and Juliette perpetually thinking each other is dead or something and repeatedly going into cold sleep in attempts to meet again, but nobody can successfully manage to get them both up and awake at the same time. This was just annoying as hell rather than cute.
• "Boys" by Dave Freer: Strange story about a girl's automatic bar machine wanting to trap her inside her home forever. Doesn't have much to do with boy-chasing, as you'd think, but there's a stealth math reference in there.
• "Trainer of Whales" by Brenda Cooper: Single mom living in an underwater dome had to give up her dream (title) job for the sake of her kid, but when an emergency happens...
• "Good Old Days" by Kevin J. Anderson: This is flat out Jetsons fanfic in which George discovers the joys of actually like, doing something for himself, and wondering what the fuck he does at work every day.
• "Kicking and Screaming Her Way To The Altar" by Alan L. Lickiss: Rich bratty woman wants an android made of her dad so he can be at her wedding. Except she was 8 when he died, and the made-to-every-detail android dad doesn't fit her childhood memories of him being seven foot tall. She throws a lot of fits. It's really annoying. What is with all of the annoying characters in this book? Is this a trend?
• "Alien Voices" by P.R. Frost: Interesting, semi-creepy tale about a ballerina getting her knees fixed with nanobots-- except the nanobots do not approve of her pushing her limits, or wearing pointe shoes, and stuff like that. It's a battle between the two sides. Gets a little melodramatic when the dancer gets suicidal when they won't let her do what she wants. Good potential, but a bit weird and I don't know who to root for here.
• "Inside Job" by Loren L. Coleman: Virtual cop does his job virutally as well as in real life. Tries to be a noir story, but it doesn't really work that well.
• "A Small Skirmish in the Culture War" by Mike Resnick and James Patrick Kelly: TV/literary snob does not approve of Rodney Dangerfield's jokes, which he's never even heard of before. Seriously, I don't know what the hell this story has to do with "The Future" (I'm not sure what time period this takes place in, but it doesn't sound terribly future-y), and the characters are annoying and it didn't really make sense to me.
• "Dark Wings" by Lisanne Norman: This is possibly the best story of the lot, as it features a fellow crash-landing on a planet that has another native species that isn't human...and let's just say the word "faerie" seems relevant here. While the romance just kinda pops up out of nowhere ("wait, what, you're making out?" I thought), otherwise it's interesting.
• "My Father, The Popsicle" by Annie Reed: Orphaned, barely legal girl who grew up poor finds out that she did have a dad--and he's cryogenically frozen. More crucially, Dad had money... This one wraps up a wee bit fast, but it's one of the better stories in this collection anyway.
• "Destiny" by Julie Hyzy: Grandma is building a shuttle so she can be with her dead husband. Meanwhile, the narrator married a deadbeat jackhole who clearly married her for her money and that's it. Narrator debates whether or not to put her grandmother into a virtual home. It is implied that she does this with the husband instead, but it's not confirmed. The ending is odd. I'm still not sure what is going on with the shuttle either.
• "Cold Comfort" by Dean Wesley Smith: Astronaut about to die on an android gets surprised. He also finds out something about his "perfect astronaut's wife." He's okay with it.
• "The Stink of Reality" by Irene Radford: Unpopular college professor invents "Sensaroma," makes money, gets ticked off, can't stand smells any more. Mostly this dude is just rather jerky and unpleasant to read about, so I didn't care about what happens to him.
• "Yellow Submarine" by Rebecca Moesta: The story of a kid getting his first car. Except it's a submarine. Pretty simple.
• "Good Genes" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: a couple finds out that their child is genetically perfect-- and should they cash in on that? Good, well reasoned story.

Overall, I'm giving it two stars. It's not great, but there's a few in here that aren't too bad.

This is a good point.

Ratings systems and their issues.

So, for the record, this is what my star ratings mean:

5 stars = FREAKING EPIC, gigantic story, everything works well, my mind is blown that a human being thought this up.

4 stars = love this book, it's just not as humongous in scope as a 5. But it's totally awesome and everyone should read it, it's a keeper.

3 stars = mixed feelings (this is where the "I think others might like it, it's just not for me" reviews are likely to go). Not that bad, but has some issues, or it's an okay story but nothing really stands out to me as being memorable. It was a pleasant enough read for a few days, but I'll probably just end up giving the book away rather than rereading it again.

2 stars = generally pretty terrible, but not 100% so. There was at least one thing in this book that made it not totally horrible. This book isn't really recommended to all and sundry, but you might get some value out of the one thing if you try.

1 star (rarely seen here): It's a wallbanger. Nothing is redeemable about this book, it's utter crap, and I probably only finished reading it so I could do an awesome bitchrant about it and I can't justify doing that to books I didn't finish.

The More You Know!(TM)

Survival: Species Imperative #1

By Julie E. Czerneda.

This is an odd book in so many ways.

Dr. Mackenzie Connor is a biologist and salmon researcher who doesn't have much interest in anything outside her narrow little research world. She doesn't give a crap about traveling to other planets, she doesn't care too much about hanging with other alien species, she pretty much has her head in the sand about stuff. This annoys her best friend Emily, a lot more than Emily has been letting on. However, Mac gets targeted for a very ominous investigation of the Chasm, an area of the universe where every scrap of life has been extinguished. She's approached by Brynm, a Dhryn archaeologist. Brynm is the first of his species to ever visit Earth, and he's here to get Mac's help. Because the Dhryn are a really static species, who has banned the study of life and they don't even HAVE medicine there ("either a Dhryn is robust, or he is not."). Socially, you're just supposed to ignore well... everything that might be upsetting.

Brynm isn't the sort to take that lying down, especially when he thinks the destruction is coming for Earth and Dhryn. When a third alien species, which appears to be a destructive one, starts attacking the Norcross Salmon Research Facility, things get dicey. Emily disappears and Mac finds out that Emily is somehow involved in some strange conspiracy. After the aliens (called the "Ro" by Dhryn) really attack the joint, Mac is forced to flee with Brynm to the Dhryn homeworld, where the Ro have never been and hopefully she can be safe and figure out... something.

And I haven't even gotten to mentioning Nikolai Trojanowski, the secret agent sent along with Brynm who is attracted to Mac. That doesn't really get off the ground too much, given the demands of the plot. I wasn't sure what to make of their uh, connection exactly. I liked Emily--what little you see of her-- but darned if I know exactly what she is up to. Of course, I'm not supposed to know because this is the first book of a trilogy. I will also admit that I am still at kind of a loss as to why a salmon researcher would be who you'd get to figure out this problem...but unlike the author, I am not a biologist, so I guess I wouldn't get that.

I hate the "Portent" intercalary chapters, which are too vague and obscure to make any sense at all and I finally just skipped them all in a giant fit of "wtf?" I hate vague prologue-y things anyway and that was bad, even if they were usually a page long. I also thought that Mac's journey to Dhryn-- and especially how long she spends cooling her heels before she's let out-- started to drag on after awhile.

What did I like? Mac's coming out of her salmon-only bubble. I liked how she started adapting to the Dhryn customs, especially where she figures out a loophole to get out of doing something that could have been very bad. I thought Brynm was a total sweetie. And when the plot is moving, I kept being interested. And I'll say this: it's got a hell of a twist ending... which is also extremely horrifying and sad, so be forewarned.

I'm not sure if I want to read more books in this series or not. It's odd for me, but intriguing. Three stars overall.

Everyday Survival: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

By Laurence Gonzales.

This has a great premise, and goes that way for awhile...and then kind of wanders off somewhere else while the author talks about all of the trips he's been on.

Why do people do stupid things?
(a) Various ways we've evolved to deal with life (mental models, behavioral scripts) do not necessarily work all of the time, and sometimes can actually totally foil us in survival. If something doesn't fit the model, we can especially be stumped-- or just ignore the impossible altogether.
(b) "Vacation mode" means that we relax and stop worrying so much or paying attention to danger.
(c) Our society having evolved in the way that it has like that means that we're losing skills.
(e) We all are trained into "groupthink" and when every other monkey does the same thing, so do we.
(f) The more "safe" we proof things, like prescription bottles nobody can open, airbags, etc., the more we start controlling life and lose flexibility to deal with changes. Which leads to small children getting charged with felonies for bringing a knife to cut steak at lunch.

I especially found the case of airbags to be interesting:
(a) Those who design cars decided that humans are not teachable to stop crashing cars. We will do that no matter what. So they designed airbags to protect us from crashes.
(b) Unfortunately, airbags will kill babies/small children who are in the front seats of cars.
(c) So now we've got to train parents to do the unnatural and stick their children in the back seats of cars.
(d) Which naturally leads to parents forgetting about the child in the back seat of the car on a hot day and then there's more child deaths.

That stuff's all great. On the other hand, in the second part of the novel, the author starts relating all of the various trips he's taken into strange places...and I just felt like he was only tangentially relating to his topic any more. The book turned into a travelogue, not a lesson. So this kind of annoyed me since I hadn't been expecting that sort of book here.

Three stars. It has good information when he stays on topic.

The Royal Treatment

By MaryJanice Davidson.

So: in an alternate universe, Alaska was never purchased by the United States, and Alaskans fought for their own independence and won it from Russia. And they have a royal family. A wild, wooly, wacky royal family where they happily use swear words and go out fishing whenever the hell they want to and name half of the family Alexander-ish names. Naturally, reading People magazine about them must be fun...I love the Alaskan Royal Family premise, in case you didn't guess.

Anyway, the premise of this (aside from the Alaskan royalty) does start out...odd. An American orphaned cook, Christina Krabbe (the "e" is silent*), gets the boot from the cruise ship she's working on. Down to her last 50 dollars, she... elects to go on a fishing trip. As you do.** Now, the king of Alaska, Al, likes to take his subjects out on fishing trips while wearing a bad beard as a disguise. People inevitably figure it out while on the trip and then act all disturbed and scared or something. Al goes to chat with Christina, who is the only one not afraid of him*** at that moment in time, and she tells him her sob story. He invites her to work/live at his big ol' place, all his kids live at home anyway, so why not... And when Christina figures it out, she yells at him. For Al, it's true love of a non-romantic variety at first cuss word, and he decides that Christina should be fixed up with his oldest son, Crown Prince David. Because she's just the type he'd love to see on the throne after him. (Happily, Al doesn't care about the lines of succession-- he's got five kids and figures someone will produce a kid sometime.)

Al brings this up to David, who is a nice, nerdy marine biologist sort who spends most of his time with his penguins in the Allen Hall section of the castle rather than dating. David is all... "um, okay," and proposes to Christina a few times upon barely having met her. Christina declines a few times, then after talking with his sister, Princess Alexandria...decides to go for it.

Yes, this is rather odd for a romance novel. But David and Christina hit it off even if she's the only girl on the planet not into penguins, and get more and more attached to each other (plus boink their way around every closet in the palace) as the engagement goes on. Even the arrival of Christina's cop ex-boyfriend, who gets hired on as a bodyguard, doesn't really derail this train of love, no matter how much he tries. Which is nice. It's very subtle in how they get more and more romantic with each other.****

I will say this for the book: it does start out odd, what with the random arranged marriage and all. And Christina comes off as SO crabby (har) in the beginning that even I, a person who is naturally born cranky, wished she'd dial it down a notch. It is odd that she gets engaged to the dude, though you can figure out why since she's an orphan and fits in with the wacky Alaskan royals like a penguin to water. The family in general is quite adorable and what with the crazy cussing and all, is great fun and refreshing in a world where we think of the British Royals as the typical standard.***** But even if I'm a person who isn't into shoe shopping either, sometimes I was like geez, Christina, tone it down. Though after awhile you do enjoy her wedding priorities-- she makes it clear that she likes toned-down dresses and jewelry, but spends two pages listing the entire wedding food menu.******

But I will say that Christina does mellow out as the book goes on, shows that she's got a heart and can be nice to people (also enjoyable: Christina at therapy with a shrink who totally gets how to deal with her) without always having to show off how much of a dick she feels like being. And when a major challenge comes up after the wedding, she and David both rise to the occasion pretty splendidly.  I have to give major props to Christina's use of blueberry pie...and that's all I'll say about that without spoiling because that's one of the best scenes in the book. So if you're feeling conflicted or irritated when you start the book, as I was, I advise you to stick with it. It's worth it.

I do have one quibble about the plot, which will be going below the spoiler cut.

All in all, this was a sassy, funny, and surprisingly heartwarming novel. It was adorable. In the end, I'm giving it four stars because despite my quibbles, I really enjoyed it.

* Alas, this "joke" gets massive amounts of overkill after...oh, once.
** Unfortunately, there's just no way to justify this crazy, so the author just kinda goes with it.
*** Beats me why they're afraid of him...okay, so the family's prone to craziness, but Al is nice! Al is freaking adorable, really. Love him.
**** I don't think I've ever seen a book before where we don't find out that the couple officially loves each other until page 250....after the wedding. Well, I guess Regency romances do that frequently, but you don't expect that in a book set in 2004.
***** Oh my god, the use of Queen Elizabeth in this book....!!!!!
****** Okay, that's tedious to read, but she is a professional cook. What else would you expect there, really?

Furies of Calderon

By Jim Butcher.

I can't help but notice that usually when there's an author I love who has an awesome Series A, and then starts Series B or C.... I tend to not be as into B or C. Or flat out dislike them. Or just not find them as good. I'm not sure why this is, precisely, but it's a pretty consistent problem for me. I am having a very hard time right now trying to think of an author (except for Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant) where I like their second series as much as the first I read of theirs.

In this case, I can pretty much tell you why I am not into this series by Jim Butcher in the way that I adore the Harry Dresden series: lack of snark. For an author who is very funny despite dealing with dire shit, this book is not funny. It does not have a distinctive tone to me. It sounds like every other dang High Fantasy book you ever read in your life in the 80's. It doesn't stand out to me, I am sorry to say. I very nearly gave the hell up on reading it at around the 100 page mark-- then was all, "Well, geez, it's Jim Butcher, people love this series too, is there something I'm not missing?" So I looked at the TV Tropes page on it, and it sounds like in other books there's a dramatic lot of action and So Crazy It Just Might Work developments that are a hallmark of Butcher... so maybe they're good. So I stuck with this book. And it's okay. But I did not fall in love. It was kind of same old, same old rather than anything unusual that I'd expect from this author.

The plot: In the country of Alera, everyone has the ability to summon at least one elemental fury to do magic powers with. Except young Tavi, who has yet to come into bloody anything at age 15, leaving him the only furyless person above puberty around. It's embarrassing. This should be a bigger thing than it comes across in the story, because mostly the focus is on the action: a rival people, the Marat, who don't have furies but do bond with animals and like to eat Alerans, are going to attack the Alerans after years of peace.

The first person to find that out is Amara*, a young Cursor** who finds out that her mentor Fidelias*** has turned traitor specifically because their ruler Gaius Sextus no longer has an heir and hasn't managed to produce another, so he might as well join the side of the next most powerful dude. Who is in league with the Marat to start a war. Amara gets the hell out of there and ends up in the Calderon Valley, where she meets Tavi and his uncle and aunt, and they get involved in the battle. Tavi in particular ends up in the clutches of the Marat, which... has an interesting, unusual outcome and you can see where the kid has more to him brainwise than has met the eye so far in this book. Meanwhile Amara and Uncle Bernard go to battle...and get attracted to each other. And Aunt Isara is targeted by a psychotic rival steadholder who wants to enslave her.

Honestly, it's okay. The start of it is freaking slow (I think that's kind of a weakness considering that 100+ pages in I was seriously considering bailing on the book), and Tavi takes about 3/4 of the book to start standing out as why we should care about his ass. I like Isana, Bernard, and Amara all right, though they're all pretty typical fantasy heroes to me. More unusual/intriguing/horrifying are the trio of baddies, Fidelias and the lovebirds he hangs out with. Especially Odiana, a former slave who was driven insane and while she's murderous, she's still got hidden depths going on. Later on in the book, on the other hand, there's so much action that I had a hard time keeping track of it all.

I'm giving it three stars, but it wasn't my favorite ever. Maybe later books get better.

* Note: maybe not have a character with so similar a name to the country?
** Personal guard? Courier? Spy? Something like that.,
*** Hah irony, I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.